Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not disagree with any of the points, but what is at issue is to have consistency across the country, or do we allow local authorities to do their own thing, whereby the size, restrictions and guidelines in Cork are different from those in Limerick, Dublin, Waterford or Galway? This happens if there is no ministerial policy in terms of the clarity on the guidelines for everything from size, aspect, space and so on. It is the responsibility of the Minister to ensure we have proper standards, good quality planning across the country and that we have an inspection systems to determine that it is right. The danger is that if we do not have the capacity for ministerial planning guidelines, as introduced in 2015, the local authorities can decide to do their own thing, which potentially would lead to many problems if there were inconsistencies between different counties and cities.